EMU students from Integrated Marketing Communications program win top honors in worldwide direct marketing contest

by Geoff Larcom, Published August 09, 2010

Two student teams from Eastern Michigan University recently won the first and second place in a prestigious direct marketing contest against other college teams from around the world.

The students, from Eastern's master's degree program in Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), won the top awards for graduate students in the annual Collegiate ECHO Direct/Interactive Marketing Challenge.

Students were required to write a paper, produce a PowerPoint and video and provide examples of potential advertising to promote Microsoft's Bing web search product. The Challenge was open to undergraduate and graduate students worldwide.

"I continue to be amazed at not only the quality of the work, but at the amazing talent in these winning student teams," said marketing professor David Marold, whose team took first place.

Said marketing professor Matthew Sauber, whose team took second place: "This shows that EMU-IMC students are of such quality that they can compete against the best college teams and win."

Marold and Sauber were the faculty advisers and course instructors for the IMC direct marketing course that drew Eastern's graduate student entries.

The Direct Marketing Education Foundation, the educational arm of the Direct Marketing Association, offers the contest annually. The DMA is a leading global trade association of businesses and nonprofit multichannel marketers that is headquartered in New York City. The competition was conducted in cooperation with Microsoft for its Bing web search engine.

Winners of the gold award for first place were, Elliot Jones, Scott Martin, Katie Talik and Alison Torreano, all of Ann Arbor. Silver award winners were Harmony Faust and Jonathan Fuhrman, of Dexter; Jeffrey McElyea, of Shelby Township; and David Schwartz of North Tustin, California.

The ECHO award is regarded as one of the top honors for marketing students around the world, with the winners to be recognized at the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference in San Francisco in October. The contest receives about 100 entries each year.